I'm in the middle of one of those travel binges that makes me question whether I'm running my life properly. Canada and Japan in July, New Zealand in August, Australia and the Netherlands in September. I confess that New Zealand involves a family ski vacation on the way to Australia; otherwise all this peregrination is mostly standards work. And it mostly involves travel and lodging at my expense.International travel sounds pretty exotic, until you've seen the inside of your 50th meeting room. Believe me, Newark, Tokyo, and the Hague are indistinguishable from a windowless conference room in a business hotel. For every ski week you pick up along the way, you clock a dozen hurried trips that minimize time away from the desk, and the work that pays the airfare.
It isn't even the money so much, though I do begrudge paying the price of a good pool table for a week of living on the road. I know many readers of this magazine understand the real cost of travel. Every week away costs at least a week and a half of good work time. Not to mention the time relaxing at home with family and pursuing other interests. Even if you have an expense account, your employers don't provide a row for that kind of reimbursement.
Yeah, I signed up for all this travel, just as you probably did. And in many ways I'm happy to participate in activities well beyond the home office, just as you probably are. But sometimes, being an adult and responsible gets old. I do all this stuff because I like to write computer programs. When the travel gets in the way of the reason for traveling, it's time to rethink priorities. I hope you have the space to do so, when the need arises.
P.J. Plauger
pjp@plauger.com